ReaditDaddy's Book of the Week - Week ending 6th September 2013 - "The Day The Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins Children's Books)

Crayons eh? You either love them or hate them. There's probably no more iconic an image of a well-loved device for making marks than the humble crayon, wrapped in its little paper sleeve with its coloured head poking out, ready to draw, scrawl and scribble.

Charlotte voraciously consumes crayons like some amazing crayon-eating monster so this book instantly hit the right note with her, and with me - because of the freshness of it and the beautifully observed humour.

When a boy reaches for his favourite art materials one day in school, he's surprised to find that the waxy little fellows aren't there - but instead there's a tiny pile of letters, written by each coloured crayons.

As the book unfolds, we learn that Yellow and Orange are eternally locked in a battle of wills as to who should represent the true colour of the sun. Pink is feeling a little left out (alright, alright, let's not get into the whole 'pink' thing - because at home, Pink would be the crayon complaining about being the shortest and stubbiest of the bunch - not blue!)

Black is a little fed up with just being used for witch hats and outlines, while Beige is convinced that he's more important and can be used for more things than Brown.

We LOVED this! Drew DeWalt has given each crayon a character and a voice that fits perfectly, and with the aid of Oliver Jeffers' trademark art style, this book has given us a whole new appreciation of our pen-pot full of scrabbly scrawlers! We won't give away the end of the book, but it inspired us to dive into our disparate collection of art materials and ensure that all the colours got plenty of love and appreciation. After all, where on earth would we be if we came downstairs full of artistic inspiration and found they'd all gone on strike!

Funny, brilliant, get it!


Charlotte's best bit: The naked crayon, the unwrapped one who was too shy to emerge from the box, EEK!

Daddy's Favourite bit: So many nods of "Yep, that's us" in this - and so many big smiley moments. Never neglect your crayons, you never know when you might need them!

(Kindly sent to us for review by HarperCollins Children's Books)